The problem with the Big Bang hypothesis is that it has our relatively uniform and predictable universe arising from the physics-destroying insanity of a singularity, which seems unlikely. So perhaps something else happened. Perhaps our universe was never singular in the first place.

In the scenario of physicists at Canada's Perimeter Institute, our universe emerged when a star in a four-dimensional universe collapsed into a black hole. The Big Bang poses a big question: if it was indeed the cataclysm that blasted our universe into existence 13.7 billion years ago, what sparked it? Three researchers at Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics propose that the Big Bang could be the three-dimensional "mirage" of a collapsing star in a universe profoundly different than our own.

In our three-dimensional universe, black holes have two-dimensional event horizons: that is, they are surrounded by a two-dimensional boundary that marks the “point of no return,” where light, matter and energy can no longer escape from immense gravitational forces.

In the case of a four-dimensional universe, a black hole would have a three-dimensional event horizon. In other words, our universe was never inside the singularity; rather, it came into being outside an event horizon protected from the singularity. It originated as – and remains – just one feature in the imploded wreck of a four-dimensional star.

The researchers emphasize that this idea, though it may sound absurd, is grounded firmly in the mathematics describing space and time. Specifically they’ve used the tools of holography to “turn the big bang into a cosmic mirage.”

Along the way, their model appears to address long-standing cosmological puzzles, and – crucially – produce testable predictions. We have no concept of what a four-dimensional universe might look like. We don’t know how a four-dimensional “parent” universe itself came to be. But our fallible human intuitions, the researchers argue, evolved in a three-dimensional world that may only reveal shadows of reality.

We have no concept of what a four-dimensional universe might look like. We don’t know how a four-dimensional “parent” universe itself came to be. But our fallible human intuitions, the researchers argue, evolved in a three-dimensional world that may only reveal shadows of reality.

Are we perceiving the true world? They draw a parallel to Plato’s allegory of the cave, in which prisoners spend their lives seeing only the flickering shadows cast by a fire on a cavern wall. “Their shackles have prevented them from perceiving the true world, a realm with one additional dimension,” they write.

The original peer-reviewed article entitled, Out of the White Hole: A Holographic Origin for the Big Bang appeared in the April issue of the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. This work was funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the University of Waterloo and by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.